___    _   ____      ___   _     _     _   ____
|   \  | | | _  \    / __| | |   | |   | | |    \
|    \ | | || \  \  / /    | |   | |   | | | |) /
|  |\ \| | ||  | | | |     | |   | |   | | |    \
|  | \   | ||  | | | |     | |   | |   | | | |\  \
|  |  \  | ||__/ /  \ \__  | |__ |  \_/  | | |/  /
|__|   \_| |____/    \___| |____| \_____/  |____/

Presents:
=-----=
THE BATTLEFORGE GUIDE
=-=


TABLE OF CONTENTS
_________________

-Free Deck Analysis
   *Nature
   *Frost
   *Fire
   *Shadow

-Recomended Budget Cards
   *Common
   *Uncommon

-Beginner PVP
   *First Rule
   *Upgrades
   *Charges
   *Deck Construction
   *Unit Counters
   *Spells
   *Power
   *Ground Control
   *ELO

-Cheap PVP Deck Model

-Intermediate PVP
   *Importance of Middle
   *Dazed Units
   *Walls
   *Cliffs
   *Base Defense
   *Power Efficiency
   *Teching

-Economy and Self-Sustaining Wealth

-PVE
   *Scenario
   *Battlegrounds
   *General Tips







_______________________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>''THE FREE DECK''<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
_______________________________________________________________________________

The Free Ceck is the 32 cards you receive when you create a new free account.
This section will detail each card in order to dispel the myth that the free
deck is inferior to decks that are significantly more expensive. 
More expensive cards simply create more variety and give access to more options
in more situations. They are by no means more powerful and even the most 
expensive deck has the Free Deck cards as its backbone.

As detailed in the Unit Counters section below, each card has an attack type
and a size.  They will be noted below the card name as:

X///Y

Where X=attack type and Y=size.  NA means no attack type.

Attack type means that a unit of a certain size will take 50% more damage from
a unit with that attack type.  For example, if a Small unit is attacked by a 
unit with Small attack type, it will do 50% more damage than if the same 
unit were attacking a Medium unit.

The orb costs for each unit describe how many orbs are required for each unit 
and which type of orb. (Nature)(0)(0) denotes that 1 nature orb in addition to
2 orbs of any color are needed to bring in a unit.(Shadow)(Shadow) describes 
the card as needing 2 orbs to beof the Shadow color.

A rating sytem done with a percentage will also be given in each breakdown.
A 0% rating is as bad as it gets and has no place in any deck but 100% is
a card that should be used whenever the colors allow for it.

=-----=
NATURE
=-=

Windweavers
___________

NA////S
(Nature)

The general consensus among veteran players is that Windweavers are
the best archers in the game. Though it is not a sentimant I share, I still 
believe them to be excellent units. Their multishot ability allows them to 
effectively double their damage output a majority of the time. If they are
attacking a lone squad, they will still get the benefits of hitting 2 units
when they are only attacking one. The multishot also allows them to hit units 
that would be slightly out of their range if the primary target is in range but
the secondary one is not. This is a rare occurence but welcomed when it 
happens. They come at the highest first-orb powercost of any archer, which 
is their main drawback and they have fairly low health for their cost. A must
in 95% of Nature decks in both PVP and PVE.

Rating: 95%


Werebeasts
__________

S///S
(Nature)

Though they do not synergize well with a PVE offense in a Windweaver group,
they are decent combat units. Quite expensive for a first-orb melee 
unit,they suffer from having weak stats. Their advantages come from 
having swift speed and regeneration. They are ideal in pve for running past
obstacles you would like to avoid or hit-and-run attacks on small units. They 
do more damage against small units but will lose against most other PVP small
units. Their best action can be seen on youtube if you search "free deck expert
 solo." They are key in beating most expert maps cheaply. To summarize, they 
are decent units but are overshadowed when the card collection grows for 
general PVP combat. 

Rating: 65%


Surge of light
______________

-Spell-
(Nature)

Surge of light heals your own units.  Surge and Windweavers are 
the core of pure nature t1 tactics. Gets 
the job done, simple, can be used for most situations, and cheap. Surge is so
effective that it is still decent enough to have continued use even when you 
reach t2. Highly needy of having charges due to the fact
that very few things are more irritating than watching your units almost dead
and surge is on cooldown, you will use often. My general rule is never heal any
army unless you can get 80+ power's worth of results out of the heal. For 
example, never heal a single windweaver unless it's an emergency. The better 
option would simply be to let him die and bring in another windweaver. However, 
if you have 300 power's worth of an army about to die, a surge of light is just
what the doctor ordered. 

Rating: 100%


Primal Defender
_______________

-building-
(Nature)

Base defense building.  Can hit both air and ground if its mode is changed to
fit the situation.  While they have excellent stats, Primal Defenders occupy
a large footprint and have difficulty shooting around each other, limiting 
their use to PVE maps that require base defense at t1.


Rating: 60%


Drones
______

L///M
(Nature)(0)(0)

These are actually interesting little things. Compared to other t3 
melee units, their stats are low. However, having a swift melee unit is 
important because
it closes the gap more quickly and prevents things from getting away. If you
have the cheap common card Tunnel, you can also use these to teleport back to
the tunnel whenever your heart desires. Large damage modifier lets them take
down most of the opposition due to how common large units are at T3.

Rating: 80%


Swamp Drake
___________

XL///L
(Nature)(0)(0)

Nature's t3 flying unit.  Their ability gives the free deck its only disable.
While they have a good, cheap ability that should be used in most situations,
they are
mostly brought in to give firepower. Their damage is not exemplary, but the
fact that they are an air unit allow them to avoid most opposition and lay
down precision strikes on targets. Another benefit that is not listed but
should be noted is that they have the same speed as swift units so also use
that to your advantage by either strafing units or running away.  They also
serve as an excellent counter to your opponent's XL units by putting them to 
sleep, damaging them with XL damage, and running away faster than XL units can
travel.

Rating: 80%


Giant Wyrm
__________

L///XL
(Nature)(0)(0)(0)

The only XL unit immediately accessable and the king of the
free deck. For a flying unit, it lays down considerable damage and though is
fairly power-needy, it is more than worth it to bring out whenever available.
Players could consider throwing in at least one Nature orb in the free deck in
order to bring out this beast. If it was not so numerously distributed I get 
the feeling that this card would be very valuable. Pairs exceptionally well
with the Shadow buff cards as well. I get happy just thinking about them.

Rating 95%


Regrowth
________

-spell-
(Nature)(0)(0)(0)

The most healing you will get for the power of any card in the game, this card
will be almost required in any deck with any Nature in it at all. To get the 
maximum effect, the caster will need to put it where his units will be for a few
seconds to also gain the heal over time aspect of the spell. Makes giant wyrms
happy (or anything else that would otherwise die). This card also needs 
charges so make sure to get ahold of multiples asap to reap the full benefits.
Also note that like all healing spells in the game regrowth is arcane, which 
means you can cast it without ground control.

Rating 100%


=-----=
FROST
=-=


Master Archers
______________

S///S

I have to be honest, when I first started the game I looked over my options and
noticed that these were archers that had more health than damage. My first 
thought was how could there possibly be a use for these guys? The whole point
of ranged units are to put a lot of pain in one area without being in harms 
way...And then I upgraded them...Boy was I wrong, these little suckers, after
upgrades, have the best stats of any t1 archer in the game. Add to that the
fact that they do more damage against small units(the most common t1 unit)
and you have a powerhouse on your hands. I understand that if you start Frost
orb you dont have immediate access to heals but with these guys it simply wont
matter. HEAVILY needy of upgrades and charges, so planning on starting Frost 
orb leaves you planning for the future. 

Rating: 95% 


Northguards
___________

S///S
(Frost)

An odd card to say the least. They have the best stats per power of any melee
unit and would be overpowered in another color. However they become obsolete 
in any deck that has Master Archers upgraded.  If you're lacking upgrades, 
throw them in, otherwise don't bother.

Rating 40%


Glaciel Shell
_____________

-spell-
(Frost)

Glacial Shell constructs a barrier around one of your buildings, making it
virtually invincible until the spell wears off.  Frost players in PVP use
Glacial Shell to defend their bases, at which it is almost too good.  It 
should be in every Frost PVP deck.  For
PVE, Glacial Shell has little use beyond purely defensive missions.

Rating: For PVE 50% for PVP 100%


Defense Tower
_____________

-building-
(Frost)

For beginners who haven't learned the right balance of attack and defense,
Defense Towers can be a life-saver.  Once you get that balance down, which
you will very quickly, they become obsolete in most situations, even for PVE.

Rating: 45%


Defenders
_________

L///S
(Frost)(0)

Another archer with more health than attack. They are also needy of upgrades
but remain far more situational than the normal archer. In pve, they only serve
as moderate anti-air and large unit killers.  In pvp, they are far more useful.
It 
should be noted that their defensive mode counts as a "stance change" which 
will return 100% power to void. On walls in defensive mode, they are nearly 
unkillable and it is more likely for the wall to crumble before they do. Don't
expect them to shine in every situation, but if you need to hold an area or keep
pressure they are your unit. Immunity to being knocked back is also nice in 
defensive mode to take out pesky things knocking you around.

Rating: 75%


Tremor
______

Siege///L
(Frost)(Frost)(0)

The first unit of this list that needs more than one orb of its color to bring
out, and what a powerhouse it is. The first temptation is to use it as a unit
whacker which, while not nessessarily a bad use of him due to his great stats,
is not where he shines. You will be hard pressed to find a unit that absolutely
decimates buildings. While he does hold plenty of use in pve clearing out 
things that dont fly, in pvp he is king at killing orbs and wells. You will 
quickly find him handing you wins on a regular basis because players can't kill
him before he kills their base with his ability.

Rating: 90%


Shield Building
_______________

-spell-
(Frost)(0)(0)

Essentially a super beefed-up version of glacial shell. If you slap this on a 
building, it will keep it alive in the midst of all but the most intense 
attacks. However, later in the game it will have more place in pvp than in pve.
This being said, it's absolutely amazing in 2v2 pvp and will irritate your 
opponents to the high heavens. 

Rating: for PVE 50% for PVP 80% 


Tempest
_______

M///L
(Frost)(0)(0)(0)

A strange unit to be in the free deck. By no means is it a bad unit, but it 
won't
ever reach its full potential until a freezing spell is collected. However, 
without it nailing frozen targets, it still has respectable damage output and
will work similar to a base defense. You might have some success doing a root-
move-root-move style on attack but that's more work than what some people would
want. As a note, it takes longer to root for attack than to unroot to move, so
remember that.

Rating: 65%


=-----=
FIRE
=-=

Firebomb
________

-building-
(Fire)

We now come to the first worthless card of the free deck. I like the idea 
behind it, but due to stupid planning, the range of the explosion won't even
hit a ranged unit. No enemy will be that stupid to run melee units into its
range, and if they are, the damage is still barely worth the 50 power. To use
the bomb on first orb it would be your only building/unit with just the free 
deck, so this makes it virtually unplayable.

Rating: 0%


Fire Stalker
____________

L(and siege)///M
(Fire)(0)

At first glance, this card seems fairly average but let me assure you, when you
get a bunch of these puppies all pouring heat on an area, you see them shine.
They are effective in ranged or melee mode but when you have a lot of them 
around switch to ranged mode. They are good to pour damage on an area over 
cliffs or walls due to their ridiculous range but note that they lose their 
swift in ranged mode. The only unit I know of that has both siege and large 
unit damage so that makes it more interesting.

Rating: 90%


Rage Claws
__________

M///S
(Fire)(0)

Though they have great health, a player might wonder why it appears they have
so little damage for a Fire unit. This is fairly deceptive because the rage 
mechanic that they have allows them to do 4x damage after 10 seconds of 
attacking. After upgrades this allows them to hit about 1800+ damage for a t2 
unit. However, this comes at the cost of having quite
poor damage before being fully ranged, and if they stop attacking for 5 seconds
they lose that bonus. Being a melee unit, it's hard to keep the rage up each 
time you kill a unit. Super-underrated unit in my mind, though they are fairly
upgrade-needy because you will see 4x improvement after each 
upgrade as well.

Rating: 85%


Lava Field
__________

-spell-
(Fire)(0)

Incredible damage-dealing card. Anytime you have a little power floating around
and see a lot of units that are begging to be on the recieving end of damage,
throw this sucker in. It is fairly needy of charges and it only does half 
damage to buildings, but the majority of the time you hit units with it, you 
get your power's worth of destruction. 


Rating: 100%


Magma Hurler
____________

L///L
(Fire)(0)(0)

One of the best free cards. In great number, they are a force to be reckoned 
with and can even bring t4 units to their knees. The only drawback that I 
can think of is the fact that upgrades don't help them along that much but 
charges will be needed. They work fairly well in large groups with swamp drakes
as well.

Rating: 95%


Magma Spore
___________

L///M
(Fire)(0)(0)

Generally players view magma spore as worthless. Though this is far from the 
truth, I almost can't blame them due to the fact that to effectively use them,
lots of effort needs to be put into running around nuking thigs on the ground
with their skill. I heavily suggest usage of the Z button skill hotkey when
using several of their skills at once. They have difficulty hitting any moving
target either in the air or the ground but if they land hits you will see 
significant damage output (greater than magma hurlers but more upgrade needy).
Eventually, if you can afford the shadow card Motivate, it kicks them into 
higher gear and catches other players off-guard because its a tactic almost 
never seen.

Rating: 70%


Emberstrike
___________

M///L
(Fire)(0)(0)(0)

In my mind, it's a heavily underrated card. I know that the temptation is to 
just
stick with XL units but these guys have more burst damage capability.
They do a great job maintaining ground control for giant wyrms and adding to 
the carnage. They have a nifty little ability to blow enemies up just by being
summoned but the problem here is that, even though its a nice extra source of 
damage, in most cases brought in offensively like this causes him to be dazed.
They have
to be played around with for a while to get a good idea of how they fit your
playstyle.

Rating: 80%


Fire Sphere
___________

-spell-
(Fire)(Fire)(Fire)(0)

Massively damaging spell that has a fairly cheap powercost for what it does.
However it has two fairly large drawbacks. One of which is the fact that it 
takes a good amount of time to charge up, during which time it is highly 
possible that your enemies might leave the radius. The other issue with the 
card is that its orb costs require 3 fire orbs, a very large request for a 
basic free deck that gets the most potential from having the biggest mix of 
colors. However, it is still highly possible to use if you like it enough and
I suggest users play around with it.

Rating: 70%


=-----=
SHADOW
=-=


Ripper
______

S///S
(Shadow)(0)

Actually one of the more underrated cards in my mind. Much like the majority
of shadow cards, it is heavily dependent on upgrades to function well but once
upped it is a pve beast. They heal when corpses are in the area and practice
will allow you to know how much punishment they can take while healing it all 
off. Stat-wise they are not exactly golden for the powercost but that doesn't 
matter if they are nearly immortal.

Rating: 75%


Nightcrawler
____________

M///M
(Shadow)(0)

This bug will turn a lot of players off at first glance. It has moderate stats
but a skill that kills itself? Why would anyone want to do that? To answer this
question I would say that after upgrades it becomes borderline overpowered and
an absolute must for any pvp deck with a shadow orb. They double their damage
during their frenzied state which allows you to gain incredibly cheap damage
output in little bursts if you keep these guys comming. Heavily needy of 
charges as well because even top decks run out of charges most often of 
nightcrawler.

Rating: 90%


Unholy Power
___________

-spell-
(Shadow)(0)

Relatively confusing card when you first read it but the best summary I could
make is that it makes a single unit take 50% less damage and do 50% more 
damage. This makes it an incredible card to be used at any orb level. It also
is one of the only shadow cards that is pretty decent without being upgraded.
On raged rageclaws they will blow your mind, on a fourth orb unit tanking you
will see better results, and on any unit that you simply want to fight harder
this is your card. My only recomendation is to not use it on cards that
have powercosts less than about 70 unless you simply have lots of power laying
around. Play with it and find out what units you think benefit the most from
it.

Rating: 95%


Stone of Torment
________________

-building-
(Shadow)(0)

This is an incredibly unique type of base defense that will 
heavily damage the enemies' troops as well as allied ones. It has a special
ability that teleports the furthest away enemy(this part does not affect allied
units) back to itself so it can continue the killing. However, it will not 
damage buildings of any player. Its best used in situations that you do not 
have to run traffic through but the enemy will continue attacking. They work 
even better in large numbers to the point that they will even teleport units 
fast enough around that they cannot even attack back as they die in the chaos.

Rating: 80%


Shadow Insect
_____________ 

L///M
(Shadow)(0)(0)

I tried to make this card work...I really did. Its stats are beyond pitiful
for the power cost and to top it off its a melee unit? I know it has swift but
that's not enough to send it into viability. It gathers up souls to shoot a
projectile at enemies but it only does decent damage when hitting a large unit
or small squads.They can make interesting hit and run attack groups if you have
a steady supply of corpses but for that amount of power most things will work.
In summary the only reason to use them is if you simply feel like being 
different, enjoy the extra clicking involved, or just have deck slots avaiable.

Rating: 10%


Mutating Frenzy
_______________

XL///L
(Shadow)(Shadow)(0)

Good stats and decent ability but the need to have 2 shadow orbs limits his use
significantly. If you can manage to work your deck around 2 shadow orbs then by
all means use him and use him a lot. His skill slowly kills himself to gain 
more damage but it also stacks with itself. You can activate it a lot after 
upgrades and if you keep him healed you will have a very good damage dealer on
your hands.(and dont forget unholy power)

Rating: 70%


Unholy Hero
___________

-spell-
(Shadow)(0)(0)(0)

Unholy hero might just be the most underrated card in the game. It increases 
damage greatly of your unit in exchange for any damage taken by the unit being
shared by your allied units in the small radius. After upgrades shared damage
is lowered significantly and the target of the spell will enjoy triple damage.
At first look it would seem that the card would only be suitable to lone 
combatants, which truthfully its good with. However in the vast majority of 
fights you will have ranged units sending in damage without being 
counterattacked. These are prime targets for unholy power and I get much joy 
out of throwing it on giant wyrms for over 15k damage. The unit being hit takes
unholy power and the others take unholy hero for maximum results.

Rating: 85%


Rifle Cultists
______________

L///S
(Shadow)(0)(0)(0)

The only 4th orb small unit in the game these guys actually have decent stats
for their minimal cost. However, the big issue lies in the fact that being 
small units, they will not be able to keep up with a fourth orb general attack
force.

Just about anything will outrun them or wait for them to catch up. Instead 
their main purpose after needed upgrades is to use their unholy grenade skill
to literally snipe units and buildings far out of normal range. It will damage
your units as well so keep that in mind but also note that things like unholy
hero and unholy power will increase grenade damage. Also there is a card called
offering that was almost made for these guys and very cheap.

Rating: 75%


_______________________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>''CHEAP POWERFUL CARDS''<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
_______________________________________________________________________________

The majority of players are on some sort of budget, so in this section, 
game-changing cards will be suggested to improve on the free deck. They are 
incredibly easy to attain by any player. Common cards are only worth 1/2 to 1/3
 battleforge point apiece as long as you can find a reasonable seller. 
Uncommons range more in price but I tried to pick out the cheapest ones to get
a player started.

Frostbite (tainted affinity/Purple Dot)
___________________________

-spell-
(Frost)

For only 20 power after upgrades, you can slow a unit down to a crawl as well 
as deal 25% more damage to it. This is a card that is incredible on any orb 
level for slowing things down, getting more damage output on everything, and 
killing bosses. As an added bonus, its cooldown is faster than its reusable 
timer, meaning that no charges will even be nessesary saving you money. For a
common card this is killer for any deck with a frost orb in it.

Rating: 90%


Imperials
_________

M///S
(Frost)

Very upgrade-needy card, but for the cost of moving very slow, has incredible 
staying power due to massive amounts of health and damage reduction. It is the
ultimate tanking unit for 1 orb but due to its speed the player will need to 
activate and deactivate the skill while going in and out of combat. Has much 
more pvp use due to medium damage modifier and generally lengthy 1 orb combat.
For most of pve only master archers are really needed but try this unit out 
after upgrades and see if its playstyle suits you for pve. For a common card
hardly a reason not to buy as a frost player.

Rating: For PVE 60% For PVP 85%
 

Breeding Grounds
________________

-building-
(Nature)(0)

A building that makes any allied unit cost 25% less when summoned in its 
radius. A must to build for any nature player in an area that the player knows
that they will bring in lots of power costs-worth of units. Good enough to 
continue being used at any orb level and if not more summoning will occur at
the area then it is best to destroy the building in order to get some void 
back. They are best built on multiplayer maps in an area that as many players
as possible can access it in order allow others cheaper units. Much more 
oriented to PVE due to the fact that the initial 70 power is a big investment
and units generally do not live nearly as long, which limits the effect.

Rating: For PVE 95% for PVP 40%

Curse of Oink
_____________

-Spell-
(Nature)(0)

Though probably one of the strangest named cards in the game, its value is 
unmatched. The effect of the spell is that it turns every enemy unit in the 
area into pigs that cannot attack or use spells but will revert to normal units
if attacked or the duration ends. There are two things that makes this disable
so great. The first thing is that you can disable an army but focus fire on one
unit to "single" it out and continue to do this killing units one by one with
almost no resistance. The other thing that makes it strong is that for the
first 5 seconds of the spell all of the units can be attacked and still remain
as pigs giving you a chance to fully attack without any retaliation. A common
and absolute must for any PVE or PVP deck.

Rating: 100%


Offering (Gifted Affinity/Green Dot)
________________________

-Spell-
(Shadow)

A somewhat difficult card to explain, but any time you find yourself waiting on
power-heavy cards to cooldown, offering is the answer. Playing a giant wyrm
without charges causes a player to wait 150 seconds until it is able to be
played again. If offering is played on a cheap card like rifle cultists, the 
most common offering target, the player will then be able to immediately bring
out another giant wyrm. An absolutely nessesary card to use for anyone short of
charges with a shadow orb and a great option for even players who due have full
charges due to the fact that 4 orb units in pve generally are used enough to
run out. Common card that once you start using it you will find yourself 
wanting it in non-shadow decks as well. 

Rating: For PVE 55% for PVP 95%


Nasty Surprise
_____________

-Spell-
(Shadow)

Another difficult card to see the benefit from at first glance but rest assured
it's a good one. It sacrifices one of your own units in order to deal damage to
both allied and enemy units in the area based on how much health the unit you
blew up had at the time of the spell casting. A few conditions have to be met 
for an ideal nasty suprise to occur. One is a full-health or nearly 
full-health unit. If a unit is less than about 75% health, it is generally not
efficient to be blowing up. The second condition is that your units that you 
are not blowing up are clear of the blast radius. You don't want to spend a 
bunch of power killing your own units and absorbing damage meant for the enemy.
Third condition is using it on a relatively high hitpoint unit which Works very
well combined with high hitpoint frost units. Though its generally needed in
pvp, it's use for pve all depends on how this sort of playstyle fits in with 
the player and how much practice is put into getting the most out of each and
every explosion.

Rating: 90%

Undead Army+Knight of Chaos+Corpse Explosion
____________________________________________

-spell-, L///M, -spell-
(Shadow)(Shadow)

Throwing all of these cards together due to how cheap they are but take note
that these are ONLY for a pure shadow player on the first 2 orbs. Despite
being generally the most expensive deck in the game, these 3 cards are a cheap
alternative for those who just have to have shadow in their life. Undead army
and corpse explosion are both used when there are corpses in the area only.
The only difference though is that undead army can be used with your own units
in close proximity but corpse explosion will heavily damage allied and enemy
units. Corpse explosion only hits ground units and you can activate it on top
of your army as its about to die or just out of range of your units and over 
the enemies they have just slain. Undead army gives you 4 groups of skeleton

warriors that only live for 30 seconds but all take 60% damage reduction, 
making them almost unkillable for the duration. Knight of chaos is just a 
generally good combat unit that can activate his skill when overrun. None of 
these are nessessary for normal players, only suggestions for players who 
demand to be shadow. The main reason they are not suggested more highly is that
first orb shadow is the worst orb for pve due to the fact that it needs 
upgrades the most, needs TONS of practice and planning, and requires a high
level of skill.

Rating: Undead Army 85%, Corpse Explosion 70%, Knight of Chaos 80%


Nomad (Green Dot/Gifted Affinity)
______________________

M///M
(Fire)

Many players do not understand how powerful and easy to use this card is.
The free deck does not set things up to be able to have your starting orb as
fire and this unit allows exactly that for minimal cost. When 3 or more are 
in the vacinity they heal each other for a sizable amount. Combine this with
swift and good stats and you have a self-supporting 1 orb powerhouse. They
are heavily in need of charges due to the fact that they should be used in 
large number or not at all and each upgrade helps their survivability. After
one upgrade they receive the ability to throw a spear at air units that 
does cost a lot of power but adds a slight degree of purpose to the unit.
If a deck has these babies fully charged and upgraded along with erruption
it is enough to tackle 90% of what you will face in pve alone with hardly
any skill needed. However, take note that they are far more needed in pve
than in pvp. In pvp they remain simply a noob stomper and will not get far
against a seasoned opponent alone.

Rating: For PVE 100%, For PVP 30%


Eruption
________

-spell-
(Fire)

I would claim that eruption and nomads round out an effective fire-first orb
deck, but truthfully it is needed in every single fire deck in the game. Easy
card to describe, it simply blows things up. One thing to note though is in 
PVP try not to blow anything up that is worth less than the power cost of 
eruption itself. Works well to damage clusters of any type of unit and has no
cooldown other than the charge cooldown of the card itself. With that in mind,
it is heavily needy of charges. Also note that it also hits air and knocks back
small units, sometimes giving nomads some extra time to heal.

Rating: 100%


Ravage
______

-spell-
(Fire)(0)

Another card that is absolutely nessessary for decks that have a fire orb in
them. It heals a single unit over time as long as that unit is dealing damage
or taking damage. Ironically, a color known for almost no defense or healing
and all offense has possibly the best heal in the game. Combos incredibly well
with unholy power, which virtually makes an unkillable unit in many situations.
Due to its extremely low power cost, it should be used in almost all situations
of t2 and t3. In t4 its use is fairly diminished due to the higher hitpoints
of units but for a incredibly cheap common, this one is a gem. 
  
Rating: 95%

Sun Reaver
__________

NA///L
(Fire)(0)(0)

Not exactly a needed card due to the fact that Magma Hurlers can clear most
oposition when their numbers are high. However, for a cheap common combat unit
the Sun Reaver simply stands fairly high in general effectiveness. It does 
increasing damage the longer that it hits a unit similar to the rage mechanic
but the damage will continue to mount even a slight duration after the Sun
Reaver ceases to attack. The vast majority of its damage comes from the burn
effect which also is increased with buffs such as unholy power. Though the unit
does have a root ability as well as a line area of effect spell, these are 
generally not nessessary at all due to the fact that simply whacking units will
reap about the same results. Great choice for the pvp player who does not have
2 frost orbs for tremors but still needs a heavy hitter to kill buildings.

Rating: 80%
 
  
Maelstrom
_________

-spell-
(Frost)()()()

To explain how effective this card is I would go as far to say that any pve
deck with at least one frost orb needs maelstrom. For the amount of damage you
pull out of this card for very little orb restriction it is as dirt cheap as
they come. Though its an uncommon card it is often found for only 3 bfp and it
is completely worth it. The powercost of 240 is about average for a damaging
fourth orb spell but after upgrades it drops all the way down to 180 which is
fantastic. Unlike other disables, it literally has no maximum amount of units
that it can freeze, so even the largest armies in the game hit by this not only
will take great damage over time but be frozen in a few seconds. Also combos 
incredibly well with shatter ice if your deck has 3 frost orbs; I can't think
of much that will survive that double threat.

Rating: 95%


Necrofury
_________

XL///XL
(Shadow)()()()

A unit that only appears to have moderate stats but this is slightly
misleading.In his ranged mode, he deals considerable amount of damage to any
ground unit to effectively be a mobile attack turret with considerable range.
After upgrades it gains the bone shard ability that, while it reduces his own
health to use, causes incredible destruction in the target area. Not only does
this ability one-shot most things with unholy hero, but works really well with
regrowth or infernal chain green affinity. In summary, he is the king of 
killing ground and air isthe king of killing him. Eventually, he is not mobile
enough to keep up with expensive decks, but he is still underrated in my mind
with support for such a cheap uncommon. You could even snag him from another
player for 2 bfp.

Rating: 65%


Fountain of Rebirth
___________________

-building-
(nature)

I often hear of players telling me how much they "need" shaman. Though it is my
opinion it is also supported by results: he is one of the most overrated cards
in the game. Though nature can survive the majority of first orb encounters 
with only upgraded surge of light and windweavers, hurricane and ensnaring 
roots are the only real need. Though both of these cards hold too high of a 
price tag for this section I will suggest an alternative: Fountain of Rebirth.
This little shrine can be assigned to a hotkey to provide gradual healing for
not only your army, but every allies army as well across the entire map. This 
card will make you known as a teamplayer and make others love you for very 
little powercost. You can also use 2 of them and alternate their abilities for
continual healing. Its prices is a tiny fraction of shaman and its pve uses are
greater due to much less powercost allowing for less offensive loss to gain 
healing. Though it cannot make Surge of Light obsolete, it will guarantee you
using it less and you can activate it throught the entire game as long as it
stays alive.  

Rating: 80%


_______________________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>''THE BASICS of PVP''<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
_______________________________________________________________________________


   The first rule of PVP:

''CARDS DO NOT WIN GAMES, PLAYER SKILL AND UPGRADES WIN GAMES''
 
What does this mean?  Your first few games, you'll lose a lot.  It's not 
because the other guy has better cards than you.  It's because he knows how to
use them and he has upgrades for them.  I have gotten to the top 200 in pvp 
with only the free deck on not one but 3 different accounts. The free deck has
some of the best cards in the game and the only thing expensive cards bring 
are more options. If anything, expensive cards are a curse for a beginner 
because they are far harder to get upgrades and charges for. There are a few
cards and strategies in the game that might be a little too effective, but 
there exists no "autowin" cards currently, and virtually every card and 
strategy can be countered with enough knowhow.

Now that we have this rule down, let's move on to some of the basic 
things you need to know before you start playing. 


''UPGRADES:'' 

Upgrades are the lifeblood of a deck. You can beat the most
expensive low-level decks in the game with fully upgraded and fully charged
Masterarchers alone. You can go to allbfcards.com to know what PVE maps you
need to be playing to get the upgrades you need for the cards you own. Maps
will usually take several runthroughs to get the upgrades you are looking for.
This hard work is necessary in order to be competitive. Alternatively, you can
purchase upgrades with Tokens, which are won in Random PVE maps and PVP
matches.  This way is much slower, but has the benefit of offering improvement
to your PVP skills or a break from running the same map mission over and over.

For an example of the power of upgrades, I will use the card master archers.
Without any upgrades, master archers will do 300 damage, but with all 3
upgrades applied they will do 480 damage, which is a whopping 160% increase.
That's a world of difference that you will notice immediately as the enemies
fall.


''CHARGES:''

   Charges are also necessary for a good PVP deck. Charges are extra copies of
a card that you can attach to the card; the more charges you have, the more
times you can use a unit or spell before the cooldown period hits. (Cooldown 
for a card is the length of time you have to wait before you can use it again.
Cooldown is calculated by taking the card's powercost, changing to seconds,
and dividing by two).  Charging a card requires you to have the upgrade for
the level you want to charge (ie upgrade 1 to add one charge) and you won't
get the card you use to charge the original card back.  Games are often won
and lost because all of the units 
you
need are on cooldown. The free deck cards are dirt cheap, so take advantage of
this and charge them as much as possible. 

   Upgrades and charges, added together, give you your deck's LEVEL. An average
PVP
deck is level 40, so
don't put yourself at a disadvantage by starting to play with a low-level deck.
Your cards should be at least at upgrade 1, if not upgrade 2, with most charged
at least once before you dive into ranked PVP.


''DECK CONSTRUCTION:'' 

   The vast majority of pvp games are won and lost at Tier 1 or Tier 2 (when
you have one orb, you're at Tier 1, or t1.  When you have 2 orbs, you're at
Tier 2, or t2, and so on.) Games ending on t3 happen but are far less
common, especially in 1v1. PVP games should never go to t4 - if they do, 
something went horribly wrong.  This means that your PVP deck should have a lot
of t1 and t2 cards, a few t3 cards, and absolutely no t4 cards.  

   As I've mentioned, the majority of PVP fighting occurs at t1 and t2.  Your
deck should reflect this.  An average PVP deck has about 7-8 t1 cards, and your
t2 should have abour the same number.  T3 should have no more than 4 cards and
as few as 1, depending on your deck build and playstyle.
   
   Speaking of which, your deck build and your playstyle are closely related.
There are four colors in the game: Fire, Frost, Shadow, and Nature.  In 
general,the following is true for each color:

   FIRE has cheap, powerful units and spells and is designed to harrass the
      enemy, strike fast and strike hard.
   FROST has slow units with a lot of health and strong defensive spells and
      is designed to build slowly, steamrolling once it has enough power.
   SHADOW has a variety of quirky units and strategies and relies on 
      unconventional combinations of units and micromanagement.
   NATURE has weak, expensive units and many powerful healing and crowd control
      spells; it relies on these spells to control the enemy's units and the 
      battlefield.

If you only use one color in your entire deck, you're using a PURE deck. These
decks are quite powerful and have unique units.  You can also combine colors to
form hybrid decks, which can also be quite powerful.  FIRE/NATURE is the most
common for beginners, because you get the striking power of Fire and the spells
of Nature, which heal your cheap Fire units and cover when you make mistakes.
In general, Pure decks are about three times as expensive to fully upgrade and
charge.  However, they're also easier to play with and arguably more powerful
than hybrid decks.  

   The more you play, the more you'll realize which deck suits you best. In
general, if you like to attack constantly and risk defeat, go something with
Fire in it. If you like to attack slowly and with force without much clicking
around, go with Frost. If you like a challenge or enjoy more micromanagement,
try Shadow or Nature. The balance of the game, while not perfect, has reached
a fair level of balance that no matter what color combination you chose you can
be successful.


''UNIT COUNTERS:'' 

   Like most modern strategy games, BF units are grouped by their size, from
Small to Extra-Large (S, M, L, and XL.)  In general, S units have the lowest
HP, attack, and cost; while XL units have the highest of each.  Almost every
unit in the game does extra damage to a specific size enemy unit.  Take a 
moment to look at your Giant Wyrm card. In the lower left of the card it has 
the letter L. This indicates that the Giant Wyrm does 50% bonus damage whenever
he hits an L unit. Giant Wyrms are L counters, that is they do the most damage
against L units.  That doesn't mean that you can't use them to attack other 
units, but they should mostly be used to attack L units.  That goes for every
other unit: it should be used to attack the size unit that its attack
indicates. A * indicates that the unit does no bonus damage to anything.
Windweavers are like this, for example.  

  The biggest difference between beginners and intermediate PVP players is 
that beginners often attack randomly, while intermediate players build their
decks to have specific counters.  A well-built deck will have each kind of
counter, S, M, L, and XL at both t1 and t2.  Some decks can't do this, but
you'll figure that out as you go and learn to compensate.

   Another type of damage is important in the game.  In their descriptions,
certain cards list SIEGE damage.  Siege units do extra damage against enemy
buildings.  Siege is vital in attacking enemy bases, 
because it takes down enemy Power Wells and Orbs much faster than any type of
attack.  Most decks include at least one Siege unit, and Pure Fire relies
on them to survive.


''SPELLS''
    
   In general, there are five types of spells:

   DAMAGE SPELLS do direct damage to enemy units.  Some have knockback, which
      knocks certain units down and prevents them from attacking.
   HEALING SPELLS heal your own units.
   DISABLE SPELLS freeze or otherwise incapacitate enemy units, preventing
      them from attacking and usually from moving.
   BUFF SPELLS give your units special abilities like increasing their 
      defense or attack.
   SHIELD SPELLS are unique to Frost, and give units or buildings a shield
      that either takes all damage or greatly reduces it.

There are other kinds of spells, but those are the main ones.  Each deck 
has different spells; for example, Fire has damage spells but no healing 
spells. Shadow and Nature rely the most on spells.  Shadow has several spells
that have unique effects, and Nature has the most healing and disable spells.  
Nature and Shadow can also steal enemy units, often at great cost.  

   An important concept with spells, and playstyle, is something called 
CROWD CONTROL.  Crowd Control is your ability to handle an enemy attack 
consisting of many units.  Disable spells keep all of those enemies from 
attackign while you focus on killing one unit at a time.  Damage spells can
wipe out large numbers of enemy units.  It's important to play around with 
spells to see how they work and how they effect different units of all colors
and sizes.  Certain spells go very well with certain units, and other spells
can be used to devastating effect on the enemy.    

PLAYING THE GAME   

   Once you've played around in the Forge, picked the deck that suits you and
built it according to the instructions above, and gotten a few upgrades and
charges, you're ready to dive into PVP.  Here are some important concepts to
understand once you start playing the game:


''POWER:'' 

   The biggest beginner mistake is a failure to understand power flow. Power
Wells are the resources of the game; they give you Power, which enables you
to deploy more units, cast more spells, and build more Power Wells and Orbs.
At the beginning of each PVP match, you're given NUMBER Power to play around
with.  Once you use that up, you draw power from the two Wells near your
starting Orb.  This power is put in your Power pool, which is the large
number in the upper right.  It represents the total amount of power you have
available to spend at any given time.  In order to gain Power faster, you
must construct additional Wells.

   A Power Well takes 200 seconds (3 minutes and 20 seconds) to pay
for its initial 100 power cost. This means that if you build a power well and
your opponent did not, the opponent will have more power than you in hand for 
200 seconds. This is especially important at the very beginning of the game.
If you build a well and your opponent does not, he has that 100 power to spend
on units and spells to attack your well.  Conversely, if you don't build the
well and he does, you can attack his well.  There's a very fine balance 
between a successful early-game attack and failure, which takes a lot of time
and practice to work out. 

   VOID POWER is essential to understanding PVP.  Every unit destroyed or
spell played will put 90% of its powercost into Void Power. The Void Power
is slowly added to your Power pool.  There are a few exceptions to the 90%
rule,one being whenever you repair a building any cost to repair it is
refunded 100%. 100% refund is also given for when you switch stances of units
such as Imperials or Spearmen. Whenever a power well or an orb are destroyed
you get 0% refund. This means that killing a well is 10X more important than
killing 100 power's worth of units. In addition to restricting their power
flow, you also force them to lose that 100 power forever.  For this same
reason, you should guard your own wells and orbs with your life.



''GROUND CONTROL''

    To summon any unit you must have what is referred to as ground control.
This is essentially a ground unit or building that you have in the area that
allows you to instantly summon units or spells around it. Though this mechanic
is well known to the majority of players, it should be noted that the 
manipulation of it is a tactic of its own. Even if the enemy has twice the 
power you have in most cases they cannot harm you as long as they do not have
ground control near you. Lone units running for your base should be intercepted
before they arive at your base to cause the enemy to either lose his one unit
giving him ground control, or summon an army of dazed units that can only fight
at half efficiency, giving you a sizeable advantage in the fight. In attacks 
your air units generally need to be escorted by ground units in order to 
support them when nessessary due to the fact that air units do not give ground
control. In the same way, if an enemy is attacking you with mostly air units 
and very few ground units, if you can eliminate the ground control first the
air units will be impossible to support with anything other than heals or buffs
from that point on. Always remember that you cant disable things without ground
control and disables are a large factor in combat effectivness.

    Every heal spell in the game along with a few others are listed as arcane
type on the card. This allows them to be cast even without any ground control
in the area though it should be noted that several cards in the renegade
expansion are listed as arcane, such as frostbite, that are not arcane.


''ELO''

    ELO are the points either gained by winning a match or subtracted for most
losses. Matchmaking does its best to pair 2 players together with the closest
of ELO and ELO is directly related to your ranked PVP rating. Though this would
seem to be a simple concept, many players have many misconceptions about the
way this works. 

    A brand new player starts off with an ELO of 0 and Experience of 0. For
about the first 20 games or so the player gains experience which causes his
ELO to go up when winning or losing.(wins will still grant more ELO gain)
After experience hits 100% ELO gain will then be only related to winning or
losing the match. Beating an equal ELO player will net you about 500 ELO and
losing that match will subtract the same amount. A top ranked player playing
a nearzero ELO player will grant around 3000 ELO if the zero ranked player
winsor only around 30 ELO if the top ranked player wins. The higher your ELO
is,the higher PVP level you gain. Experience alone will give you a PVP level
of around 12 or so even if you lose every game so don't get too cocky when you
first start. Activity level can also grant up to a 10% bonus to ELO and
actually subract rating after much time passes without any ranked matches.

    As I said before matchmaking will always pair the closest available ELOs
together in a match. I often hear of players saying that MM is broken because
they play many top ranked players. However when this is happening there are
literally no other available players to match you with and is the fault of the
small community. That being said playing a top player is by far the best way to
improve at this game. Watch what they do and copy their strategies or the way
they do things. A top ranked player does nothing superhuman and there is
nothing that separates you from them.(if there is an upgrade disparity you
shouldbe getting more upgrades) You don�t ever learn anything from winning and
 if youwhisper the top player they generally will tell you what you�re doing
wrong and what to improve. Getting mad and logging off helps no one.


_______________________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>''EXAMPLE OF CHEAP PVP DECK''<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
_______________________________________________________________________________

If you have thousands of bfp, you can completely skip over this section because
it is dedicated to squeezing the most bang out of a pvp deck with the least 
amount of bfp possible. This example deck is literally the very cheapest deck
you could possibly use without having any major handicaps. While its not the 
best deck possible by any means, nothing comes close to effictiveness to bfp 
ratio. It took me around 2 months or so of testing to find the ideal cheap deck
and this was the result. 

=-----=    
                     |T1|	

Scavenger
Sunstrider
Wrecker
Makeshift Tower
Eruption

                     |T2|

Rageclaw
Skyfire Drake
Ravage
Fire Stalker
Unholy Power
Rallying Banner
Commandoes(blessed affinity)
Windhunter(either affinity)
Darkelf Assasins
Lavafield
Nightcrawler
Bandit Stalker(gifted affinity)
                     
                    |T3|

Magma Hurler
Sun Reaver(either affinity)
Gunner(infused affinity)
=-=

    Though it has a relatively light first orb setup, it can combat most 
opposition fairly well. Starting unit is almost always scavenger and 
sunstriders are usually brought in just in time to become undazed for the first
struggle. In all out rushes always have at least one wrecker in the group for 
his skill to bring in instant undazed reinforcements. Against heavy small unit
opposition, go heavy on makeshift tower and scavengers. For medium units, use 
mostly spread-out sunstriders and a few wreckers mixed in. It is almost always
a good idea during first orb to have a scavenger on the field, not only for 
small damage and mobility, but also for the slowing effect which works wonders
with your archers beating down a slowed unit. 

    Second orb your main strategy will be keeping your enemy on the defensive
and "superbuffing" your units. Superbuffing consists of putting both ravage and
unholy power on a relatively strong unit such as windhunter, commandoes, or 
rageclaws. This causes the unit to become incredibly tough and hard to kill.
Lavafield will be used for any time there are 3 or more enemy ground units 
around and darkelf assassins will be the majority of your small unit counter.
If the enemy towers use firestalkers or attack somewhere else, and for large
offensives of any kind, it's generally a good idea to contruct a rallying
bannernear the fight. The worst thing possible for this deck is for you to be
on a defensive due to very limited options for saving your precious wells and
orbs.

    On third orb use magma hurlers for killing any large unit threat, sun
reavers for longterm damage(usually great for killing orbs), and gunner for
partial penetration of all types of shields, including glacier shell and area
of affect siege damage for mass building destruction. Both gunner and magma
hurler can also be used for medium unit knockback if nessessary, and don't 
forget that ravage and unholy power continue to be excellent on all of these
cards. 

    Things can be taken out and substituted however the player desires to fit
their own personal playstyle. This setup is devastating against color 
combinations that do not have a disable and do not have disenchant due to the
fact that you superbuffed units will be nearly immortal.A fully raged rageclaw
with unholy hero hits for an unholy amount of2772 damage which is unheard of on
second orb. Cliffs in range of enemy buildings will also be strengths for this
deck due to firestalkers being able to fire from them with near impunity. 

    The deck is very weak if it ever finds itself in defense or faces decks 
that have disables. This is because if you spend the 140 power necessary for 
your unit to have bother buffs, the enemy can simply disable your unit and let
the buff durations run their course which will cause them to have a power 
advantage due to spending less power. One solution for this is to follow your
units around with a windhunter which if it is not disabled itself can remove
the disable from whatever unit you want for the cost of some of its health.


_______________________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>''INTERMEDIATE PVP''<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
_______________________________________________________________________________

Now that you know the basics of PVP, it's time to move on to some of the more
advanced concepts and tactics.  


''IMPORTANCE OF THE MIDDLE:'' 

On the vast majority of maps there is an orb with a
well cluster surrounding it in the middle of the map. If a player controls and
is able to defend this area, it is a massive advantage over his opponent. Not
only can it sometimes deny the opponent from reaching t3, but also it gives
you control of a large well cluster that you can concentrate your defense on.
It also can bottleneck your opponent by refusing him map control.  Military
strategists call this the 'central position,' and every good general from 
Alexander to Schwarzkopf used it to achieve victory.

   As I said in the beginners' guide, a well takes 200 seconds to pay for 
itself. Running to the middle and building a well without any unit support
is a quick way to a bad loss.  The enemy can use that 200 seconds and 100 
power to wipe our your well.  Instead, bring in a big enough army to skirmish
over the middle ground and wipe out the enemy army before taking the well. 
Most games are won and lostin this fashion.  

   It's important to remember that control of the middle does not guarantee
victory.  Certain maps, particularly with cliffs, are not good for taking the
middle.  Some maps also don't have a middle well cluster, so taking it is
obviously not that important.  The more you'll play, the better you'll get at
seeing the strategic locations where you should build wells and attack the 
enemy.
 

ADD NOTE ABOUT SWIFT UNITS AND FROSTS LACK

''DAZED UNITS:'' 

   Units summoned away from one of your wells or orbs only have 50% life and
only do 50% damage.  This is important throughout the game; you should never
attack an enemy army or base with dazed units.  If they're near their base,
they can drop full health and attack units and you'll lose every time. The 
only time you should drop dazed units are when you're out of range of the
enemy, like when you're headed towards the middle and you drop them far
enough ahead of time that they'll be un-dazed (which takes NUMBER seconds)
by the time they reach the middle.  This takes experience and practice to
pull off.  
Once you get to where you're comfortable with the timing and power flow of
the game, you can drop dazed units into a situation where they'll put you
over the top.  This takes a lot of experience to understand and comes with
time.


''WALLS:'' 

   Walls are found on some maps already built and on others unbuilt.  You can
build or rebuild a wall for a set power cost, usually 25 or 50.  Walls are 
generally worthless in PVP except for one case: if a wall can have archers 
on it that are in range of any of your bases, it is of the utmost importance to
do whatever you can to keep the enemy from building those walls. If a player 
gets an offensive wall up in range of an enemies� orb or wells, it is an 
incredible advantage and usually leads to the game ending early. This is called
wall rape. Building the wall yourself is an option, as is keeping your own 
units in range of it so they can't build it.  You can do the same with your own
walls near an enemy base if they somehow let you by not seeing the threat or
simply don't understand the danger.  


''CLIFFS:''

   Cliffs are like walls, in that if they're too close to your base, the enemy
can put units on top of them and destroy your base without much trouble.  
Pure Fire decks are notorious for doing this with Firedancers, which have
incredibly long range.  In general, ground units at the base of a cliff 
cannot shoot units on top of the cliff without being right at the base of the
cliff, well within range of the enemy's units. Unlike walls, you can't just
build a cliff yourself.  The best way to avoid cliff attacks is to avoid 
building bases under cliffs, even if that base is in the middle of the map.
The other alterative is to use air units to defend the base, but realize that
most decks do not have great air units. 


''BASE DEFENSE:'' 

   Many PVE maps require base defenses in order to win.  In general, base 
defense buildings are worthless in PVP.  The enemy can often destroy them
at little to no cost to himself, and you've wasted all that power for nothing.
One of the biggest beginner mistakes is building too many defensive structures,
particularly when an attacking army is within range.  A building under
construction takes NUMBER% extra damage and will rarely be built if it comes
under attack.  Bottom line, with only a few exceptions, you should not rely
on base defense buildings, and should not have them in your PVP deck.


''POWER EFFICIENCY:'' 

   Another beginner mistake is using more power than is necessary.  This is an
incredibly simple concept that many people struggle with.  For example, in 95%
of cases. you should not use a spell to kill a unit if the spell costs more 
than the unit. EVen though you killed the unit, you've used more power than your
opponent, and he can use that power imbalance to hurt you more than you've hurt
him.  Eventually if you do this well enough, you can "count power," which is a
expert skill that will give you a great indication as to how much power the 
other player will be able to throw into a fight. 

   The other 5% of the time usually involves base defense.  If you have a well
or orb that's in danger, do everything in your power to save it, including 
wasteful spells.  The power wasted is far less important than the loss of a
well or orb.  There are other situations where you can waste power, like taking
down an XL unit, but those are few and far between.


''TECHING:'' 

   Teching means moving from one tier to the next, like from t1 to t2.  Many
beginners do this when they have the power available rather than as part of a 
larger strategic plan.  The general rule is don't build an orb unless you have
an immediate direct plan that you
are going to use it for. Otherwise, you've wasted the 150 power, and chances 
are your opponent will use that power to destroy the orb you've just built. 
If you have extra power sitting around and can't figure out what to do with it,
build units for an attack or build wells for power.  Don't ever build an orb
simply because you're bored or at a loss for something to do. 



_______________________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>''ECONOMY AND SELF-SUSTAINING WEALTH''<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
_______________________________________________________________________________

    Because  Battleforge can be played entirely free with very 
little handicap when compared to paid players, many will refuse to ever spend
a dime on the game out of principle. It is also an understood fact that not 
every player can afford to buy Battleforge points for some reason or another. 
Therefore this section is dedicated to providing guidance to those players who
want to generate enough Battleforge points to sustain most deck choices through
manipulation of the auction house as well as savvy spending without using any
real money. Players that refuse to spend real money should be highly cautioned
that any following measures suggested will all be far less efficient than
buying a digital copy of Battleforge on amazon.com for 12 USD, which gives an
instant cd key that when entered in the game will provide 3000 Battleforge
points and 64 additional free cards. Unless a player straight up donates this
to you, there is absolutely no way to generate that many points without 
spending considerable time �investing� to achieve thi,s which will end up 
costing you more money on the electricity bill than the 12 USD option. 
Additionally, time is always worth money, and if a player cannot afford 12 USD,
they cannot afford to be spending months in the game investing virtual money. 
The developers spent considerable time to give us this excellent game and a 
little money goes a long way for their post-release development to always make
this game better. That being said, the following are ways to generate 
Battleforge points without spending any real money.

    
    The first rule of thumb that may not be immediately obvious to starting
players is to literally save everything you have for a while. Each player is
awarded one Battleforge point, which from this point on will be referred to as
BFP, for playing 15 minutes per day. Though this may seem like a small amount,
it will be the biggest source of income to a starting free player and will 
later be used for investments in the auction house to multiply itself. If you
have read this far and need any bfp whatsoever, message me ingame telling me
you read this and I will happily mail you 5 bfp. 

    
    The initial temptation is to buy the mini-boosters that cost 1 BFP, but I
assure you that there is not a single booster in the game that yields its own
value in cards in the long term. They are all gambles that will lose you BFP in
the long term and the vast majority of the time will give you cards that do not
even fit the structure of your deck. For example the vast majority of common 
cards in the game are worth roughly one half of a BFP as long as the seller has
enough supply. If you can buy 2 common cards that you know that you need from
another player, why spend that same 1 BFP for a completely randomized common 
that will most likely not be of any use to you and only be worth half of a BFP?
Each mini-booster has a 10% chance of yielding an uncommon card, which are 
generally of more value, but due to the massive amount of mini-boosters bought
over the months by the entire gaming community, the supply of these 
uncommon cards has driven the value of each down enough to not make that 10%
chance worth spending the 1 BFPon them statistically. Stories will always be
told about how a player made money off of some booster pack, but I assure you
that these are isolated incidents and that generally the biggest
regret by far of starting players is spending money on boosters. If players
could make money on boosters in the long run then they would constantly buy
them until the end of time and make incredible amounts of money, however this
is not the way markets work, so save your BFP. 


    One rule that may sound strange that will actually benefit you and save you
loads of time is avoid trading with other players. I know the idea of trading
sounds great, both players get what they want and everyone leave happy. 
However,the way trading pans out in this game is that both players want to 
profit off of each other, which is an impossibility. This leads to loads of 
offers that will be made for your cards that in the vast majority of cases are
awful value for you. Buying cards from other players with bfp is more than 
fine. Let it be noted that if a player is trying to sell you a card make sure 
it is being offered for less bfp than the lowest buyout value of that card in 
the auction house. Never make a deal with another player before consulting the
auction house because a cards price will always be its lowest buyout at the 
time, this fluctuates daily, so check often. 


    Another option when it comes to cheap cards is buying cards for gold. 
Because the ingame trade mechanic does not allow gold to be traded this has to
occour by mail. As such one player has to heavily trust the other because in 
gold trading even if payment is sent, the other player can cheat you and send 
nothing back. To avoid this extremely common problem go to the official 
battleforge forum where there is a trade section. In this section players 
needing gold set up a list of what's for sale and how much it is. These players
usually have several vouches that you can see in the thread that allows him to 
be a player you can trust because their shop will close down if people stop 
vouching for him. Let it be noted thatgold:bfp ratio is somewhere between 
1500:1 to 2000:1 depending on the seller, so be sure you have plenty of gold
left over for upgrades if you trade your gold away.


    Once you have a decent amount of Battleforge points saved up, around 12 or
so, and a decent deck built it will then be time to invest in the auction 
house. A general rule to go by when it comes to card buying for use or 
investments is to never spend your entire savings on any card ever. Having 
usable BFP is always more important than having a card that holds the same 
value because of two main reasons. One of which is that you never know when a
great deal will show upm so you want to constantly be ready to jump on deals 
when they happen. The second reason is that the more BFP you have, the faster
you can make it; therefore, having no spendable BFP makes earning any more BFP
far too slow of a process. 

     Stay away from buying any common card due to the fact that 3 bfp for a
common is ridiculous. My advice would be to find around 3 different uncommon
cards you can count on that generally go for about 6-12 bfp buyout. To find
cards in this range that don't fluctuate that much it will take patience to 
monitor. Once your "target" cards are selected and from monitoring them you are
sure that the buyout never hits less than 4 bfp, bid on any of them that you 
can put a 3 bfp bid on. Expect to be outbid on around 90% of these so plan for
the long haul and bid on as many as possible. It is the 10% that you are 
waiting to slip through the cracks and be awarded to you for a fraction of 
their cost. The next step is place these back on the auction house for 1 less
than whatever the lowest bid is. Another expectation is to have many of these
auctions go unsold so prepare to keep putting them up and be patient. 
Eventually you will win these bids and sell the cards and you will slowly see 
your investment rise. As your usable bfp rises so will the speed at which you 
can make it by either bidding on a greater number of cards or moving up to more
expensive cards. An example would be cards that generally sell for 50 you might
be able to grab for 30 or so. My advice is that if you bid on more expensive 
cards that you plan to resell make sure your profit is high enough to warrant 
the greater risk. Buying a normally prices 50 bfp card for 47 bfp generally 
ends in you bein stuck with that card unable to sell it for anything more than
45 due to rising and lowering of prices. Expect your ingame mail to be filled 
with "you have been outbid" and "auction unsold" and dont be discouraged 
because every "you have won the bid!" and "auction sold!" is money in the 
pocket. Over almost a year I have literally generated somewhere around 25,000 
bfp but looking back that time would definately have been better spent on 
amazon.com buying bfp straight. This method is only for those who enjoy playing
 markets or whos time is worthless.

    As an added sidenote, if you have any wealth whatsoever in your account
or value it whatsoever NEVER give your account information to anyone. Not
even Electronic Arts or Phenomic Studios will ever ask you for any of your
account information because they already have every bit of it in their data
base. If you ever have another player send you a message or mail pretending
to be Electronic Arts or asking for account name and password report them
immediately by using "/report playername reason". We dont need any more
accounts stolen or people trying to steal them. The community is small and
fragile and every account counts!



_______________________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>''PLAYER VS ENVIORNMENT''<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
_______________________________________________________________________________


    Player vs enviornment includes both scenarios as well as randomly generated
battlegrounds and will now on be referred to as PVE. This will be the source of
the vast majority of your upgrades and is the core of the game's grind.


''SCENARIOS''

    Scenarios are also known as missions and can be found listed on the world
map. At the start of the game very few are available but more become unlocked
as you progress through the missions. Beating a mission on standard in single
player yeilds 2 first level upgrades. Advanced yeilds 2 second level upgrades
and expert gives 2 third level upgrades. 2+ player maps give 4 upgrades each
victory even if only one player beat the entire map. A mission has to be 
completed in standard difficulty to access its advanced difficulty and the same
is true for advanced in order to unlock expert difficulty.Some missions do
not have a standard difficulty and can only be seen on the world map when 
advanced or higher difficulty is selected from the drop down bar. Use 
allbfcards.com to know what missions you need to play in order to gain the 
upgrades you need and let it be noted that it will usually take several retries
of a map to get the upgrades you need due to randomness in its awards. Just 
learn a good system to knock each map out as fast and efficient as possible.



''BATTLEGROUNDS''

    Battlegrounds are also known as random pve and are randomly generated maps
in which the user selects a difficulty out of 10 and is given a certain amount
of time in which he or she needs to elemenate every enemy unit and building 
before it expires. These are generally maps that require a rolling offense
and where base defense has almost no place whatsoever. The four types of 
enemies that a player will find are bandits(easy), stonekin(easy),
twilight(medium), and lost souls(hard). The type of enemy is completely random
and can usually be predicted by the color of the land.

    Instead of assigning direct upgrades for victory, battle tokens instead are
assigned. These can be used in the upgrade menu to buy the exact upgrade you 
want as long as you have enough to purchase it. Though this may sound like a 
more favorable alternative to the random drops of regular scenarios let me 
assure you that it is less efficient. The only times when battlegrounds are a 
better source of upgrades are when you cant seem to get a certain upgrade from
scenario because it wont drop or because you cant beat it. If you use 
battlegrounds for the majority of your upgrades, not only will you get them at
a slower rate, but the repetitive nature of battlegrounds has burned out many
players who simply get bored of it. Generally decks that are effective in 
battlegrounds have very few first, second, and third orb cards because a player
should be able to get to fourth orb quickly and spend the majority of the game
with 4 orbs. Generally avoid 2 player battlegrounds because for some reason or
another they are far more difficult than the single player and 4 player
battlegrounds. 



''GENERAL TIPS''

    A vast majority are my opinions but they are also based on a significant
amount of my experience with what I have been massively successful with. The
amount of options available for pve is just staggering so it is impossible to
address everything. On the bight side of things there are not too many ways to
mess it up in PVE until you hit expert difficulty or lvl 8-10 battlegrounds.

    -One thing most players dont seem to grasp is that even the free deck has
     been proven capable of beating every map on every difficulty. If you do
     not believe mem youtube has every single map beaten with only the free
     deck and I would suggest using this resource to guide you heavily when
     having trouble.

    -PVE is all about clearing out maps as fast as possible. Very few maps need
     any base defense whatsoever and a common mistake are players who sit back
     binding the majority of their power in immobile base defense. Missions and
     battlegrounds are best played literally by an attack that rarely stops. 
     Press hard and keep killing, wasting time is the worst thing you can do.
     Find out what the minimum amount of units it takes to get to the next orb
     and remember that each time you play the map to save loads of time.

    -Once the card collection is big enough, the player should make specialized
     decks for each map and a seperate one for battlegrounds. The decks can be
     very close in composition but generally what excels at map map is 
     ineficient at others. For example, some maps need an extensive 1 orb 
     arsenal and others are almost entirely fought on 4th orb. Some maps    
     demand base defense but most are better played without any at all.This 
     will become much more apparent at higher map difficulties where the right
     tools for the job become much more nessessary.

   -Power needs to always be used as efficiently as possible. This includes
    actions such as never having any units without an immediate purpose. If you
    have lots of first orb units standing around but have more than one orb in 
    your possession, then kill your units to cycle your void power back into 
    usable power. It will give you far more power to work with in the long run
    that you can spend on higher orb units that will be quite a bit more bang 
    for your buck. 

   -Extra large units are not always the best or strongest choice. I know every
    player enjoys seeing a behemoth rampage opposing armies but I find that far
    too many players take this too far. They begin to believe that without XL
    units their deck is "weak" and spend far too much time searching and buying
    units that are not needed just because they are XL units. Any XL unit that
    is not t4 is highly situational and there are always far cheaper 
    alternatives.
 
   -When creating a PvE mission ALWAYS set the upgrade distribution type to
    assign. Random upgrade distribution is always asking to have angry players
    due to the rewards either being given to undeserving players, or ones who
    have no use for the upgrade. Note that you cannot set distribution type
    for battlegrounds and 1 player missions. 
     
_______________________________________________________________________________


 


''Disclaimer:'' Nearly everything in this guide is based on opinion and it is
nearly guaranteed that there will be exceptions to my rules and advice.
That being said, this is the most comprehensive and accurate guide that
was possible at the time and has been based on my most successful techniques
over the course of more than 2 years of play. If you find any obvious 
discrepancies or have requests for additional information don�t hesitate to 
either send me in-game mail or to email me at [email protected]. I will be 
looking to constantly add and improve the contents of the guide. Thanks again 
for reading!


=-----=
Guide version 1.4 Hopefully more to come

Thanks to Masterarcha for ongoing editing
=-=